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Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

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Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#731

Post by wyager »

purephase wrote: post #243
wyager wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The methane output issue is also pretty much total BS. First off, there used to be over 60 million buffalo in North America, producing similar amounts of methane. We have only 50% more cows today. Second, whatever cows don't eat is probably going to be metabolized by fungi, which also produce methane (although it's not well-quantified how much). Third, the half-life of atmospheric methane is only on the order of 9 ye…

There's a lot of literal bullshit to dispel here. First, the whole bison vs. cow argument is bunk for a variety of reasons. The diet that roaming bison ate is very different that the beef and dairy cattle eat today. Also, they didn't typically shit in large pools given that they were not animals that we're penned in to the same geographical location and roamed, often over many, many miles throughout the year. Second,…

> The amount of food created to feed cattle is staggering

Cattle are mostly fed off grazable plants in agricultural dead zones and byproducts of human ag production. The marginal ecological impact of feeding cows on top of humans is not that significant.

You seem to be operating under this idea that concentration of resources like manure is worse than having the same amount over a larger area. Can you explain your thought process there?

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#732

Post by wyager »

dvko wrote: post #502
wyager wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect, but a common misconception. The Amazon is destroyed to grow soya crops for 2-3 years. After the land has been depleted by soya growth, the farmers will put cattle on it for tax/legal reasons and because they can get a bit more money out of it. The vast majority of the economy impetus for rainforest destruction is due to demand for soy. Vegetable activists often attempt to divert blame to meat production by…

> Cattle are fed the byproducts of soy production like soy meal that humans refuse to eat. By dollar value, almost all of the soy produced goes to human consumption. This is provably false, see [1]. The page is in Dutch, but surely there are English sources just a quick Google search away too. 1. https://nieuwscheckers.nl/nieuwscheckers/soja-voor-veevoer-i...

Surely if you have some compelling rebuttal you can find an english source.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#733

Post by seanwilson »

gnull wrote: post #418
blux wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One counterpoint against 1), and what eventually pushed me to stop eating meat, is the supposed humane slaughtering of the animals. It is not humane at all, and there is a lot of malpractice against the animals while they are in the slaughterhouse. There was a broadcast on Dutch television highlighting these issues. If your stomach can handle it; here is the link, but I warn it is very expressive: https://www.youtube…

> I warn it is very expressive > ~3m23 the actual footage Pigs are stunned, hanged by their back legs and have their throats cut. What's the problem? If this is inhumane, how should humane slaughtering look like according to you?

> Pigs are stunned, hanged by their back legs and have their throats cut. What's the problem?

Because the above is obviously very cruel and nobody would like it done to them to say the least? Would you say the same if it was for dogs, cats or horses? The obvious cruelty of the above is only ignored because it's normalised through culture and tradition.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#734

Post by spicymaki »

wyager wrote: post #728
spicymaki wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nutritionally meat alternatives stack up well against fast food beef. With the added benefits of fiber and lack of cholesterol and saturated fat. The costs have to do with scale and government incentives. Plant protein is clearly cheaper to produce than animal protein.

Fiber is unnecessary unless you eat too much undigestible plant matter and cholesterol is not as simple as “it’s bad”. Most men are cholesterol deficient.

> Fiber is unnecessary unless you eat too much undigestible plant matter

I am not exactly sure how to parse this. Could you explain?

> and cholesterol is not as simple as “it’s bad”. Most men are cholesterol deficient.

LDL cholesterol is pretty bad given that they build up in your arteries causing arteriosclerosis. I think it is pretty well understood that saturated fat found in animal products as well as dairy products raise LDL levels. Fiber reduces cholesterol levels in addition to aiding in regulating metabolic function.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/f...

Not exactly sure about cholesterol deficiency in men, I have not heard that before. Pointers to that would be helpful.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#736

Post by spicymaki »

fastball wrote: post #392
spicymaki wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No! Lions eat to survive and do not have choices due to evolution. Humans on the other hand can choose how to source their nutrients. I don’t believe that animals eating animals in an abstract sense is wrong. The problem for me is necessity and scale. We don’t need animal protein to survive and the scale of the death and environmental harm is too much to ignore.

How is any of that true for lions and not true for humans? I eat to survive as well – if I did not eat, I would die. I have also evolved to eat meat, as lions have. Environmental concerns I think should be excluded from this offshoot of the conversation, which is spawned from ethical concerns about killing animals, not environmental concerns.

> How is any of that true for lions and not true for humans? I eat to survive as well – if I did not eat, I would die. I have also evolved to eat meat, as lions have.

The difference is that humans can process plant materials into what is needed whereas lions cannot. The humans/lions analogy breaks down because most of us do not live in the Serengeti fighting for survival.

The ethical dilemma is: are you eating to live or living to eat?

In the past we needed to eat animals to survive, so there was a purpose for animal farming. Now that we don't need animal sourced proteins we are consuming mainly for ignorance or human pleasure.

As we improve the technology and the fidelity of plant based and/or synthetic products improve it will be more clear that we don't need to keep killing animals to satisfy our taste buds.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#737

Post by sweetheart »

xdennis wrote: post #518
sweetheart wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they ever have the option to live full, healthy lives without eating other animals, I'll hold them to the same standard.

At this point I can't tell if you're a parody account or not but I'll bite: how exactly do you plan on forcing omnivorous animals (bears, etc) from eating meat?

I don't. Do you think it's likely that obligate carnivores will be able to live full, healthy lives without eating meat? I don't. But you can, and I can.

I hold anyone who can live that way to do so, as I see it as a moral obligation to reduce suffering when possible, regardless of species.

Do you seriously think I'm proposing that we force these animals to survive on plants alone?

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#738

Post by SamBam »

spenczar5 wrote: post #725
SamBam wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is more than I had understood remained, and also a surprisingly high number. Possibly there is an issue of definitions. This site, for instance, calculates that 40% of the US used to be grassland, and it's now under 5%. [1] Possibly there is a difference been "old growth" unmanaged grassland, and "pastureland" that is mostly seeded with purchased grass and clover seed. Certainly the old prairies do not exist in…

I agree that there seems to be some wobbliness in definitions here. I think your citation must have an error. It says: > In the United States, only 5 percent of the original grasslands remain; or about 358 million acres. If I understand this right, it's claiming that there were once 20 * 358M = 7,160M acres of grassland. But the total size of the United States - everything, not just grass - is about 2,400M acres, so…

> I would think all that pastureland would be pretty good at sucking up carbon and storing it in soil, but I don't know.

I'm unsure, but my understanding is that carbon sequestration of the old-growth "permaculture" of the prairies and other grasslands comes from their extremely deep roots. [1]

I'm not sure what the pastures of a typical large cattle farm look like, and whether their roots travel anywhere near as deep. However, as we're already establishing, I'm not an expert.

1. https://www.fws.gov/news/blog/index.cfm/2011/6/27/iowa-the-p...

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#739

Post by twobitshifter »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #706
louthy wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand grain used for animal feed is of a poorer quality and can't be used to make bread. And so it's essentially a waste product (usually because of rain just before a harvest). I won't claim to be an expert, this information was given to me by an arable farmer friend of mine.

Meanwhile “More than half the U.S. grain and nearly 40 percent of world grain is being fed to livestock rather than being consumed directly by humans.” Your anecdote makes it sound like animal feed is just a fixed waste cost of growing food for humans.

Correct but at the same time, the grain production wouldn’t be there if humans were the only market for grain and that grain being produced is not for human consumption. No one should think that people are going hungry because grain is being fed to livestock. Our food needs are met by agriculture.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#740

Post by sweetheart »

sidlls wrote: post #167
shreygineer wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emotion might not be a good basis for argument, but neither is "X is also non-zero amount bad so why should I stop Y even though it is more bad" Ex: "Donuts are bad for you because they are sugary" "Well, apples have sugar in them too! Should I stop eating them as well?!"

I was poking holes in the absolutism of the GP’s argument, not arguing as you suggest.

Veganism is never about absolutism. Veganism is about striving to do the best possible. Can every single human being go vegan? Probably not. But that vast majority can, while living full, healthy, happy lives.

Where is the absolutism?

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